By Edward Nawotka
For obvious reasons, if you want customer service this week from Kotobarabia, Egypt’s predominant e-book store, you’re out of luck.
Ramy Habeeb of Kotobarabia
Ramy Habeeb, founder and CEO of Kotobarabia, who spoke to us from his home in London, notes that the company’s servers are located in Arizona in the United States and, accordingly, they’ve had no disruption of service. “But when you look at the analytics, we have lost all Egyptian traffic,” he says. “We typically do participate in the Cairo International Book Fair and fortunately all of our inventory is online, so the disruption isn’t as much of a problem for us. It’s the small- to medium-sized publishers that I’m worried about.”
Habeeb’s company was the first to offer e-books in the Arabic language and he’s had a long-term exposure to the vagaries of the Egyptian publishing scene. Bookstores are few and far between and distribution for a publisher typically doesn’t extend beyond five kilometers from the publishers front door –- or “the distance someone can carry books on their back.” He noted that for a typical small Egyptian publisher sales at the Cairo International Book Fair and smaller ones around the country often account for 60% or more of their annual revenue.
“My hope would be that the organizers of the book fair plan plan another event in the summer,” says Habeeb. “If they wait till next year, that’s going to be too long for some people. The next biggest book fair -– in Beirut –- isn’t until December. The Riyadh International Bookfair is big and takes place in March, but that is likely going to be too soon for many to make the trip.”
The upside to all this comes later, after censorship is lifted and a new government is put in place, when publishers will be free to print the titles they want.
“I think what we’ll see is similar to what is happening in Tunisia,” says Habeeb. “The lifting of the censorship laws had an immediate results. The first thing we’ll see is a wave of books that were previously banned by the previous regime, such as books criticizing the regime or titles about Mubarak. these things will come into effect pretty quickly. The next wave is letting in content that was previously not let in . . . but my fear is that censorship will maintain itself. Heavy censorship has been a part of Egyptian life for a long time and has become part of our modern psyche. My fear is that once everything is let in, we might say “Oh, but that’s smut, so let’s stop that.”
Habeeb believes it is the responsibility of the Arab and Western publishing communities to stand up for “non-censorship.” They can do this, he says, by participating in the rebirth of the free and open Egyptian publishing industry.
“Our responsibility is to introduce new perspectives,” he says. “When you’re watching the news there is the fear that a fundamentalist regime will take over as it did in Iran, but the best way to fight that is through education, through a demonstration of the pluralistic world we live in. You have to make sure all views are represented.”
At the same time, Habeeb is pragmatic. He knows that while it’s important that views are expressed, it won’t matter if readers can’t get the books. “As a publisher, it’s not just about fighting censorship, it’s about maintaining the market. The flood of books that I can see coming, they need to move and get into people’s hands . . . and then they need to be read.”
DISCUSS: Should Extremist Views Should Be Available to Readers in Egypt?
4 Comments
We will be holding our 30th Edition in November and we will do all we can to assist those who have suffered through Cairo cancellation.
Feel free to contact us through twitter @shjintlbookfair or email: shjibf at gmail com
Ramy is right with everything he says and predicts. There will be quite an influx of material that had been banned in Egypt, ranging from critical fiction and non-fiction (which had been published in Lebanon) to the more extreme version of Islamist propaganda (which mostly derives from Saudi Arabia, that beacon of democracy in the eyes of various US governments).
What one should take into consideration, however, is the fact that the overwhelming portion of books published and distributed in Eypt have always been religious books, and many of these would be deemed incendiary in terms of intolerance. Adding a good dollop of anti-Jewish and anti-Israeli propaganda drivel that has graced the programmes of even large Egyptian publishing houses in the past, quite a lot of what has been available in the past has been rather un-appetizing. Don’t bet on an improvement in this respect.
Talking of the Cairo Book Fair: this once proud event has been ruined over the past ten years and is now not much more than a bazaar for cheap books (which still has great importance for the local industry). You can easily find the culprits for this among the bureacrats favoured by Mr. Mubarak’s administration.
I found it rather amusing to see that Ramy does not mention the mighty Abu Dabhi Book Fair as an alternative for Arab publishers – but then, Abu Dabhi might just not quite serve as an alternative, contrary to what PR will have us believe.
And finally: Nice try by the commentator from Sharjah, and yes, one should patronise that event. But it doesn’t help if you don’t give proper information about who you are and what you can offer.
That censorship exists in modern Egypt is so interesting considering that ancient Alexandria established one of the first libraries that purposely sought out international texts:
http://stephanienikolopoulos.com/2011/02/02/youth-guard-library-of-alexandria-during-egyptian-protests/
I’m impressed that the Egyptian youth have banded together to protect the Library of Alexandria.
I am a publisher from Egypt. I don’t see censorship as our problem at all. There are a lot of books that speaks about Mubarak and other political issues with no major problems. The censorship was with the publishers themselves. The two issues that will boom after this revolution, are sex and religion. You will find a lot of books with complex sexual content and some books speaks about the unspoken sides of religion.
Just check with the old project of kotobarabia the softcopy book store, what books used to sell, books about sex even when speaks about it at the old Arab history.
I think what outside this part of the world don’t understand, you have to LIVE here to understand how it works. we don’t function like other countries, and its proven now … I guess 25 January speaks of itself.
as for Sharjah ,,,, nice try , don’t let us speak about how these book fairs work.
It’s such a shame. publishers go there to sell and get money … this how you bring them to you.
Cairo Book fair is the largest in the Arab world, this year it was very well organized and different. Yeah it needs a lot of organization … yes just the whole country needed this and we are starting, whoever wants to help ,,,jump in and help ,,, don’t wave from the other side and say I am here …. (is my massage clear????)